Season 7, Episode 10, “The Prying Game”

Pre-Credits Gag:  The twins bowl.

Steve comes over to tell DJ something but she’s busy doing her hair so he decides to leave her a note.  Michelle’s hair ends up in her cereal bowl so Becky tells her that she’s going to fix it with hairspray and Michelle complains that hairspray always makes her face all sticky.  Yes, it’s a problem we’ve all struggled with.  Or at least we did in the 80’s.  Jesse resolves the issue by presenting a face guard that he’s invented for just that very conundrum.  After it prevents hairspray from getting onto Michelle’s stupid face that I want to punch so bad, Danny and Joey are so impressed that they convince Jesse to go into business with them manufacturing the device.

Stephanie brings DJ the note from Steve and says that he’s going to be cutting their date short that evening, which she knows because she read it due to her complete disregard for anyone else’s privacy.  It also stands to reason that there isn’t anything going on between DJ and Steve that would cause much controversy or intrigue so it doesn’t matter if you read their private messages anyway.

At the library, Stephanie notices Steve and then watches from behind some books as a woman comes up to him to discuss plans they have for later in the evening and then kisses his cheek.  Stephanie observes this with a somber expression as dramatic music plays.

The interesting thing about this scene is that there’s no context for it whatsoever.  You might assume that Steve has taken Stephanie to the library since they’re both there, but once the interaction between Steve and the woman occurs you kind of deduce that Stephanie just happens to be there and that Steve is not aware of it.  You’d at least think that Stephanie would mention that she was going to the library in the previous scene or something, but there’s literally no set-up at all.  We’ve never even seen this library before.

OH MY GOD WHAT IS KIMMIE GIBBLER WEARING?!!?  She looks like a psychedelic poster!  That actually might be the most garish outfit in the entire history of the show.  What a momentous occasion. Anyway, Kimmie Gibbler notices that Stephanie is upset and then Stephanie tells her that she saw Steve at the library with another girl.  They decide that they’d better investigate further before telling DJ what’s going on and agree to set aside their differences until the matter is settled.

All the dads come home and tell Becky about how they’ve booked time on the station’s home shopping show (I’m assuming that they mean the station that airs Wake Up, San Francisco, but, again, there’s not a lot of information provided and you have to sort of work things out for yourself) and she makes the very reasonable observation that they haven’t even manufactured the device yet.  They respond by doing what they always do, which is to totally steamroll over any reasonable thinking and continue on with their ridiculous plan.

Kimmie Gibbler straight-up picks the lock to Steve’s apartment so she and Stephanie can snoop around inside.  That’s actually pretty startling.  I mean, there’s never been any regard for privacy on this show, but I don’t know if it’s ever been to a criminal degree.  Stephanie and Kimmie Gibbler start digging around Steve’s shit until the phone rings and the woman from the library comes out in a towel to answer it, which prompts the girls to hide behind the kitchen counter.  The woman in the towel has a very brief conversation on the phone about how she’s about to get married and then she goes back into the other room, at which point Stephanie and Kimmie Gibbler makes the only possible deduction, which is that Steve is secretly engaged to this woman.  I like how they’re just standing in the apartment and discussing their concerns, with none for the fact that they’ve broken into someone’s apartment and could easily be overheard and discovered by a woman who is only feet away and has it within her legal rights to shoot them.

Stephanie and Kimmie Gibbler finally decide to leave the apartment but then Steve and DJ come back at that precise moment so they go back to hiding behind the counter again.  The woman in the towel comes out, now fully dressed, and it’s revealed that she’s actually Steve’s cousin, Edie.

Stephanie and Kimmie Gibbler realize that they’re a couple of fucking idiots and wait for the right moment to make a discreet escape.  Kimmie Gibbler removes one of her shoes for no logical or sensible reason and the emanating stench leads to them being discovered.

DJ freaks the fuck out about their sociopathic degree of interloping, which is actually pretty understandable, and then Kimmie Gibbler totally blames the whole thing on Stephanie.  DJ tells Stephanie that she’s sick of her stupid bullshit and that this is the shittiest thing she’s ever done and then she tells her to get out of her life, which makes the audience go, “aww.”  How is that even possible? They live in the same house.

Down at the TV station, everyone prepares for the infomercial or whatever it is.  OK, so, how many disastrous TV recordings have we seen on this show over the years?  I bet that I could tell you pretty much everything that’s about to happen without even watching it.  It would involve a lot of flailing around and missed cues and a generally unprofessional presentation.  There has literally never been a single incident of something being filmed in this entire series that wasn’t a complete fucking disaster.  And yet, here we are, about to see it happen all over again.  Well, shit.

Jesse shows Becky the sound effects machine that he’s brought for the recording so she can overlay applause or laughter at appropriate points.  He makes sure to label the buttons so she doesn’t mix them up with all of the other sound effects that it also makes, none of which are about to play into the inevitable upcoming hijinx, I’m sure.  Keep in mind that all Becky has to do here is remember where two buttons are.

So the taping begins and the most prevalent joke is that every time they mention the device, which is called the Sprayguard 2001, they say “Sprayguard two-thousand…and one!” which isn’t even really a joke.  But you know what?  They say it ten million fucking times.  You know how sometimes you’ll see a bit on TV and at first it’ll be funny and then they keep doing it and it stops being funny but then it goes even further and it becomes funny again?  Well, this isn’t like that at all.  This bit isn’t funny and then continues to not be funny and then it just makes you want to kill yourself.

So Jesse and Danny introduce their stupid device and then they haul Michelle out to promote it but she freezes up so they quickly shoo her away.  Then they bring Joey out in some phony scientist role and he manages to glue the device to his face.  Becky pulls him aside, which leaves the twins alone at the sound effects machine, which they inevitably start fucking with.  As chicken noises and ringing bells play over everything, Jesse rushes offstage to grab some hairspray so he can demonstrate the device but he grabs pink spray paint instead and applies gratuitous amounts of it all over his hair.

A caller calls in and tells them they he invented a hairspray shield a few years earlier and will sue them if they sell their device, which probably wasn’t going to happen anyway.  Jesse sees his pink hair and starts chasing Joey around the set and for some reason Becky loses control of the sound effects machine at this point so there’s all this yodeling and bagpipe music playing.  Finally, there’s a cut to this weird shot that I can’t make sense of at all.  Seriously, can anyone tell me what I’m looking at here?

DJ comes home and gives Stephanie the cold shoulder.  Stephanie gets all up in her grill until DJ tells her again that she needs to back the fuck up off her, at which point Stephanie gets all butt hurt and storms out of the room, which makes DJ feel guilty.  DJ follows after Stephanie as the music comes on and DJ explains that she just wants her to stop invading her privacy all the time.  I’m pretty sure that we’ve seen this exact same exchange between these two characters at least half a dozen times before, which does not bode well for the outcome of this conflict.  Stephanie continues to manipulate DJ by saying that she only broke into Steve’s apartment and went through his stuff because she too is hurt when DJ is wronged and that she was trying to look out for her.  They hug and then find Michelle listening in on their conversation at the door, which they both think is pretty cute.  Way to assure that this cycle of behavior will never come to a close.

This is maybe the most forgettable episode of the entire series.  All it does is recycle old plots and routines we’ve seen several times before, and it has no standout or memorable elements whatsoever.  Let’s never mention it ever again.